Post-Purchase Email Flow Using NPS to Increase CLV

A post-purchase email flow built on NPS sends five emails after the first order (order confirmation, welcome, educational content, shipping confirmation and a post-delivery NPS survey) and then uses each customer's score to choose what comes next: a fast recovery path for unhappy customers, and referral, review and upsell emails for happy ones. The goal is to reassure new customers, fix problems early and earn the second order.

OK, so we speak a lot about what happens after that first purchase. Well, mostly, what doesn't happen.

The lack of valuable content, post-purchase personalization, and dirty data cause most direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands to lose the majority of their new customers after just one order. DTC brands acquire low- and high-value customers every month, but for most new customers, the chances to buy again are pretty steep. Check out these customer retention benchmarks to see where your store stands.

So you are probably asking yourself: how do I make a post-purchase email?

Building a post-purchase email flow based on NPS survey responses allows you to increase customer satisfaction. Being connected with your customers' feelings and thinking about your products and services lets you be more agile in addressing their complaints and in understanding post-purchase behavior.

Why should you use NPS to build post-purchase email flows?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is one of the most straightforward ways to measure customer satisfaction, and email marketing enables an easy way to send the NPS surveys.

One of the most significant advantages of using NPS to measure customer satisfaction is that your company can treat objections in real time. NPS tool automation and integrations allow you to send tickets to customer support right away, so your teams can address complaints as soon as possible.

On the standard 0–10 scale, customers who answer 0 to 6 are detractors, 7 or 8 are passives, and 9 or 10 are promoters. For how to word the survey itself, see these NPS survey best practices and this NPS survey template.

What should a post-purchase email flow look like?

Once the order is placed, email becomes one of the most important communication and engagement channels with your customer.

Well, in general, that is the purpose of email: to be an engagement channel, not a revenue generation channel. The revenue is just an outcome of doing those things right.

We all know what goes through our minds when we place an order, especially when we order for the first time from a new brand. It's called post-purchase dissonance.

What is post-purchase dissonance? We're on a rollercoaster that takes us from uncertainty and doubts to enthusiasm and hope that the solution we've just ordered is going to make our lives better.

Email marketing helps you reassure customers that they made the best choice when they chose to buy from you, and that you are there to support them at every step.

OK, so this is how it looks and how you can do it. You can use the flow below as a starting point for your brand's post-purchase journey. The original version was built with Shopify, an NPS survey tool, Klaviyo and LoyaltyLion.

Before we get started, my advice is to unassign all new customers who bought from you for the first time and haven't received their order yet from any promos, campaigns, retargeting... basically anything unrelated to their order.

Why? Because otherwise:

• You will annoy them with recommendations for new purchases when they haven't even received their products yet;
• You will show that you don't care that they haven't gotten their order yet. You only want to make $$$;
• You will increase your ticket numbers and overwhelm your customer support team;
• Customer satisfaction will go down in pieces;
• You might see a lot of unsubscribes;
• You will lower their chances of placing a second order because of all of the above.

Instead, based on your shipping times, create a nurturing flow with emails or communication related ONLY to their order :)

Once they receive it, they have time to experience the products, and after you measure their happiness with you and your products, you can go ahead and drop that 20% off campaign that y'all love so much on them.

This is a very underrated strategy to keep some money in the house.

OK, let's get to it.

Email 1: Thank-you and order confirmation (sent instantly)

These emails have the highest open rate because they tap into the cognitive dissonance that happens immediately after someone purchases from a new company for the first time.

To build and maintain trust, you need to send the first email instantly. Based on the customer attributes, recap what they ordered and the estimated delivery time. It's also an excellent time to remind them of your shared values and your mission as a brand, in a way that is credible and meaningful for your customers.

*I have a sneaky strategy that improves onboarding and Customer Lifetime Value, but I will save that for another article.

Email 2: Welcome to the community (a couple of hours later)

In the second email, sent a couple of hours after the order confirmation, you can thank your customers personally, make sure they have a warm onboarding, and tell them how they can get in touch with your company anytime they need you. Also, mention that they will receive an email with the tracking number for their order once it's shipped.

Short pitstop: I would make the shipping and delivery information an email of its own.

Why? Because fulfillment, shipping, and everything related to them are among the biggest problems in the industry. Many customer issues come from long shipping times that the brand doesn't communicate.

Suggested format:

Headline: Important information about your order

Hi, {Customer name},
This is John from Customer Support!
We are very excited that you decided to give our products a go!
Because we want to make sure you are informed about all our policies regarding shipping and delivery, please see below all the info you need about this topic.
{enter your policies here}
If you have any questions, just reply to this email, or if you want to have a chat, just call us at {insert phone number}.
Chat with you soon,
John from {Brand name}

OK, now back to the flow...

In this onboarding email, you could also include a hook for a series of tips that resolve their biggest pain points. It could be sent as a quiz with multiple answers, where each answer reflects a customer expectation. Based on their answers, you'll be able to choose the best value proposition and target them with the best remarketing campaigns, via paid ads or content emails, once they have received their item and you have tracked their satisfaction with the item and your brand.

Email 3: Educational content around their pain points

While customers wait for their order to arrive, you can use the time to bring more value and maintain their enthusiasm for the product. It could be an educational video on YouTube or any other resource that shows your ability to support your customers with valuable content.

You can also use this step to find out more about their preferences via a short quiz, and transform their answers into customer attributes that you can use in future remarketing campaigns.

Email 4: Shipping confirmation

With "Where is my order?" being the most frequent question people ask in the pre-delivery phase, the shipping confirmation email is a must-have. Its place in the email flow might vary, but it's vital to let your customers know how they can track their delivery. Transparent and consistent communication contributes to higher customer satisfaction.

PS: If you sent the shipping information email from Email 2, you can follow up as "John the Customer Support Rep" to tell the customer that their order has shipped.

Email 5: Post-delivery NPS (a couple of days after delivery)

The post-delivery NPS email is key for your customer satisfaction efforts. It allows you to measure your customers' sentiment shortly after they use your products or services.

Your future communication will flow differently depending on their answers to the NPS survey. Decide where passives (7 or 8) go before you build the branches: a 7 sits closer to the detractor path, an 8 closer to the promoter path. For more on each group, read promoters, passives and detractors.

If the score is low, you are talking to detractors

The next thing you want to do is find out more about their experience and resolve any customer complaint. Exploring the reasons behind their dissatisfaction allows you to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

This is where you should ideally receive the NPS responses directly in Gorgias, Zendesk, or any other customer support tool you use. This way, you can address customer issues in real time without taking a hit on customer satisfaction and CLV.

If the score is high, you are talking to promoters

1. Invite them to your referral or loyalty program

   Send the invitation right after their NPS response, while their satisfaction is fresh.
2. Ask for a review

   Two days after their NPS response, send a review request for the products or services they had the chance to use.
3. Suggest a better product

   One week later, suggest a better product or service based on their latest order as part of your upselling efforts. But be careful: you want to bring more value, not seem too pushy.

Based on your business model and metrics such as purchase frequency or average days between transactions, you can design an email marketing flow between orders, mixing educational content with relevant offers for your customers.

How customer profiling and quizzes support the flow

Another essential part of the post-purchase journey that isn't necessarily related to email is customer profiling. It helps you collect more data points about your customers through quizzes and pop-ups to create a customer profile. Having a customer profile allows you to build personalized journeys for your customers.

On-site quizzes and pop-up surveys can run through Omniconvert Explore's survey capability, and the answers become attributes you can use in the email flow.

How to adapt the flow to each customer segment

This is one of the possible workflows that help you create post-purchase email flows for your customers, measure their NPS, and keep customer satisfaction high throughout the relationship.

You can support your customer satisfaction efforts by integrating your NPS solution with your email marketing tool, customer loyalty solution, and eCommerce platform.

To adapt the journey to each segment, you need to know who is in it. Nexus by Omniconvert builds RFM segments from your order data, calculates customer lifetime value and predicts churn, then pushes those segments directly to Klaviyo, Meta Ads and Google Ads, so a first-time buyer, a loyal promoter and an at-risk customer each enter the right flow.

To learn how to adapt the journey to each customer segment, we recommend taking the CVO course in CVO Academy, where Valentin Radu details the blueprint that helps you nail customer journey optimization.

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